


people made of smoke

by cherryfeather



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-23
Updated: 2012-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryfeather/pseuds/cherryfeather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, Molly is different, and Sherlock feels a storm coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	people made of smoke

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday present for the lovely [skyremains](http://skyremains.tumblr.com), the best sister a gal could ask for. Inspired by [this amazing creation](http://cumberbitchrichter.tumblr.com/post/20785329147/no-im-not-leaving-him-not-again) on tumblr.

One day, Molly is different.

Not physically. Not in appearance. But he walks into the lab, and she starts when she sees him. Her lips make the wrong shape for _Sherlock_ at first, but she catches herself, says his name like it's nothing. She covers herself well, but something about him's unsettling her. Interesting.

More than that. He realizes when he gets closer, when she's pulling the slides he asked for, when they make eye contact for a moment, that he was wrong at first. She does look different.

Her eyes are all wrong.

They're _old._

He wants to ask but something, some deeper instinct, tells him not to. Sherlock is not used to that kind of instinct. It's his voice, but not.

It worries him enough that he holds his tongue. For now.

\- -

Molly knows things that she couldn't possibly. Science that he knows she's never studied, history that she would never have been interested in. She lets it slip in conversations, and even John's noticed, even _Lestrade_. She tells them she's taking classes, but Sherlock knows it's a lie. _Everything_ about her is different now, nothing overt, nothing so obvious as a surface change, but Molly Hooper is most certainly a different person.

Sherlock suspects.

\- -

"You're not Molly Hooper."

She looks up from the microscope, eyebrows slightly lifted, and that would be enough of an answer. The old Molly would have started, would have been flustered. This Molly is cool. A little sarcastic as she says, "Then who am I?"

"I don't know." He hates having to say that, but it's true. He's studied every aspect of Molly Hooper's life for the past several weeks, talked to everyone in her building, her colleagues, her boss, even Lestrade, but nothing changed. Nothing that would indicate an impostor, and he tells her, and she laughs. She _laughs._

There's a shadow behind it, he sees. Something uncomfortable.

"I'm the same as I've always been, Sherlock." That same, minute hesitation before his name. Like she wants to say something else.

"No," he says, pushing himself off the wall and moving to the door. "You aren't."

\- - 

They fall back into the same rhythm, business as usual, because what else is there to do? He needs her resources, she continues to provide them in the context of "friendship." It works.

Eventually he asks her about the missing persons case that's stumped the Yard for weeks. (It's got him, too, but he'll never admit it. John teases him about it mercilessly. Sherlock would never admit that, either.) He wants to see what this new Molly will do.

"Interesting," she says, as he spreads the briefs out in front of her. It's under the guise of a friendly lunch, just a chat between colleagues to shake free some ideas. John is giving Sherlock a suspicious look over the table. Sherlock ignores him. "It's like they just vanished into thin air."

"No evidence of a struggle, nothing ever left behind, no DNA to be found," John confirms, taking the envelope of crime scene photos and shaking it out. "It's...definitely weird."

Sherlock notices when Molly notices, her head turning sharply at one of the photos John's arranging. "Where was that one taken?" Sherlock's eyes snap to it. Third victim, ordinary garden on the outskirts of the city. Trellis, shrubbery, a few statues. John's giving her the address, and there's an odd intensity in Molly's not-Molly eyes. She plays it down, doesn't ask any more questions, but Sherlock knows what she's thinking.

He follows her that night, John tagging along and whispering things in his ear like _she's our friend_ and _we could just ask her_ and _the hell are you trying to prove, anyway?_ Sherlock (mostly) ignores him. He doesn't know what he's trying to prove. It's that instinct, the not-his-voice that's been growing steadily louder in these weeks that Molly's been different. It feels...dark. Something ominous, something huge and cold and _dark_ that's hidden deep inside him and trying to come out. Like a storm coming.

He doesn't want to tell John that he's worried, so they tail Molly to the third victim's garden in silence.

She pulls something strange out of her pocket, a long, thin metal tool, before she hops the fence. They stay back, not following just yet. It'd be too close. The house is set apart from the rest of the little community, dark now that its only inhabitant is dead; any noise would be a giveaway. They stay close to the fence, though, listening. Sherlock can tell John's about to say something when Molly's voice rings out in the dark. 

"I know you're here," she says, her voice stronger and harder than Sherlock has ever heard it. "I know you're preying on these people, and I'm here to tell you to _stop._ "

Sherlock and John share a look. _What?_ John mouths, and Sherlock shakes his head.

There's a strange, high whirring sound, and a blue light illuminates the garden on the other side of the fence. John and Sherlock duck, but it's too late.

"Who's there?" Molly says sharply. "I know there's someone, get over here where I can see you." She's never sounded like this, all command and not a little peremptory, and Sherlock doesn't hesitate before jumping the fence. He hears John's grumbled curse before his partner follows.

Molly is keeping her eyes on something on the other side of the garden, and she doesn't turn to look at them. She's holding that strange tool out in front of her like a weapon, and it's _glowing blue_ \--but it's not a torch. Sherlock's far from an idiot, but he has no idea what's going on here. Molly checks the thing like it's a scanner, and makes a frustrated sound. "Doctor-- _Sherlock_ , what are you doing here?"

"Looking for answers," Sherlock says, and Molly flashes him an irritated look. 

Her face changes from irritation to alarm in less than a second. "John, behind you!"

They both whirl, John's arm darting inside his coat--

It's just a statue. An angel, covering its face.

"What, the statue?" John asks, looking back at her. There's another one on the other side of the garden, Sherlock can see now, Molly's pointing at it with the--thing. She's staring at it again, not taking her eyes off it.

"Yes, the angel," she says tightly. "Back away from it, slowly, do _not_ take your eyes off it for a second."

Sherlock would argue, but John complies instantly and that means Sherlock has to, as well. They slowly edge towards Molly, keeping a watchful eye on the statue. "Molly, what is going on?" John demands.

"The statues aren't statues," she says, and Sherlock can't doubt the certainty in her tone. "I can't explain right now. Keep your eyes on them."

"There's another," Sherlock says, eyes darting to the entrance of the garden. Another angel, its face covered like the others. It wasn't there before. How could it not have been there before?

"Keep looking at it," Molly orders, her fingers doing something complicated on the silver tool.

"What is that thing?" Sherlock asks, twisting to look, and she actually _hits_ him, pointing with it.

"Sherlock, the angel!"

He turns back, and it's _moved._ It's a good six feet closer.

He blinks. "Well, that's new."

"I would like some answers, please," John says in that bland, deadly tone of his, drawing his pistol from his coat.

"In a minute," Molly says absently. "Just keep your eyes on the angels. They can't move as long as you're looking at them." And that doesn't make _any_ sense, but apparently Molly doesn't care, because she's already moved on to the next thing. She lifts the silver tool up high, raising her voice. "I'm telling you to leave," she calls, her voice commanding and hard again. "You are in direct violation of the Treaty of the Seventh Opal Sunrise, and I am ordering you to _leave this place_."

Sherlock can't help turning to look at her again, because the words that are coming out of her mouth are _nonsense_ , she's talking to statues, for God's--

"Sherlock!" John yells, and he turns back--

The angel's a foot away from him, and its hands are stretched out in claws. Its blank eyes glare at him, and it has sharp teeth bared in a snarl. Sherlock backs into Molly in alarm, and she curses.

"Sherlock, don't turn and look at me, but I need you to listen closely," she says in a low voice. "We need to scare them off, and the sonic screwdriver isn't enough."

"The sonic _what_?" John asks no one in particular.

"I'm going to put something in your hand," Molly says, and he can hear the misgivings in her voice. It must be a last resort, if she's so worried by it. "Don't look away from the angel. Don't even blink. Just hold what I give you, and lift it up so the angels can see. _Do not open it._ Do you understand me? Don't--open--it. Not until I say."

He wants to argue. But her voice brooks no disagreement, and that strange voice inside of him wants to say yes. He swallows, his eyes on the vicious creature nearly close enough to touch him. "All right," he says, and something round and cold slips into his hand. Slowly he brings it up into his own line of sight, so he can keep the angel in view, because he has to know--

It's a fob watch. An antique fob watch, with curious, circular designs etched in the cover--designs that his mind wants to unravel, just hinting at the edge of understanding, like a language he's forgotten. The watch starts to warm under his touch, and suddenly Sherlock can hear voices. A thousand voices, a chorus that would deafening if he could hear it properly, but it's just a whisper, just under the edge of consciousness, and suddenly he realizes he's holding his breath.

"When I say open it," Molly says, still rock-steady behind him, "I want both of you to close your eyes, _immediately._ "

"What about the angels?" John demands, and Sherlock has to agree. There's one barely in arm's reach of him, he's not about to just _close his eyes._

"What's inside the watch will frighten them away," Molly says, like a schoolteacher explaining to particularly slow children. Sherlock resents that. "But it will-- _hurt_ the both of you, so you need to close your eyes. You can't see what's inside, especially not you, Sherlock."

"Why not?" he demands, his ears still straining for the voices from the watch. They're just out of hearing; maybe if he opens it...

Molly makes a furious little sound of desperation. "Sherlock, please, I will explain everything later, I swear, but right now you just need to do as you're told, all right?"

John snorts down a laugh behind him ( _not_ appropriate, given the circumstances, Sherlock needs to have a word with him later). But Sherlock doesn't feel like fighting, for whatever reason--that other voice deep inside trusts her, wants to listen. It's louder now, with the watch in his hand, and Sherlock doesn't feel quite himself. Something's wrong with his head.

"All right," he says, his own voice strange to his ears. "All right, but you have to tell me _everything_ , Molly."

"I will," she says, and for some reason she sounds sad. "Everything, Sherlock. On my signal, then, and _close your eyes._ "

"All right." He twists the watch in his hand, puts his thumb over the latch.

She takes a breath, holds it, lets it out. "Now."

He clicks the latch and squeezes his eyes shut tight.

Golden light burns against his eyelids, and the voices rise to a roar, a hundred thousand million voices, talking laughing _grandfather_ crying screaming and quiet in his head filling him _hello sweetie_ and the whooshing grind of metal thunder lightning _oncoming storm, doctor doctor doctordoctorDOCTOR_

Cold hands slam the watch shut, and everything stops. Sherlock lifts his head, gasping for air, and somehow he's on his knees in the dirt, John beside him, half-supporting him. Molly's hands are tight over his, she's the one who closed the watch, and she's staring at him warily.

The angels are gone, and it's just the three of them.

The four of them?

"What the hell," he gasps, his head feeling like it's been torn to pieces and put back together the wrong way, "is happening to me?" John's arms tighten around him. Sherlock's too far gone to try to reassure him. He can't even reassure himself.

Molly takes the watch from his limp hand and carefully pockets it. She holds it like it's something precious, something infinitely valuable. She reaches out and touches a cool hand to his face, and her pulse is all wrong, some detached part of his mind notes. It's too fast. _Doubled,_ the stranger's voice whispers, and Sherlock forces it down.

"Come back to the lab," she says, "and I'll tell you everything."


End file.
